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23 April 2015

CNN reports on a new study showing there is a HUGE gender
bias in hiring decisions in the United States and it has been this way in some
fields since the eighties. You already knew there was gender bias in hiring
(duh) but you probably did not know how bad it was. Check this out: The
gender preference in hiring decisions was 2-to-1 in some areas for candidates
with equal qualifications.

That is an embarrassing number for a country that prides
itself on equal opportunity. A 2-to-1 advantage is not even within driving
distance of equal rights.

By the way, this study matches my personal observations over
a lifetime. I have been in countless meetings in which a strong gender
preference in hiring was discussed behind closed doors. Now I feel terrible
about all those conversations. I am officially part of the problem because I
did nothing to stop it.

I’m not sure if I mentioned that the study shows the gender
advantage in hiring favors women by 2-to-1. That matches my experience in
business. I have been in lots of closed-door meeting with other men discussing
a preference for hiring women. I have never heard a man express a preference
for hiring another man. Nor have I heard it in a private conversation. It makes
me wonder how common my situation is.

The above situation seems fairly common to me, and roughly
describes my experience with retail hiring decisions. In fact, I advised my boss to hire a female
because it would be good for sales and business. The only time I’ve ever heard anti-female
discrimination was with a contractor for whom I formerly worked. He did upscale painting, and was adamant
about his customers wanting paint crews that were clean-cut white males. As such, he never hired women, non-whites, or
any white male that looked like a drug user or convict.

Getting back to the point, I think the feminists have pretty
clear won the workplace battle for the most part. Women can pretty much work in any industry
they choose because most of the people in charge are willing to bend over
backwards to not appear sexist. More to
the point, there are of jobs where feminine traits are huge plus anyhow, which
gives women in ingrained advantage in several areas.

Therefore, if women are being underrepresented in certain
sectors of the economy, it’s probably because they don’t want the jobs at the
price being paid, or they don’t want the jobs at all. Not every woman wants a career; many are
content to stay home and raise families.
Thus, it’s time to stop worry about male career privilege. What we have now is about as good as it is
going to realistically get.

All these concentric circles of privacy depend on some level
of shrouding. They depend on some level of secrecy and awareness of the
distinction between the inner privileged space and the outer exposed space.
They depend on the understanding that what happens between us stays between us.Cop-cams chip away at that. The cameras will undermine
communal bonds. Putting a camera on someone is a sign that you don’t trust him,
or he doesn’t trust you. When a police officer is wearing a camera, the contact
between an officer and a civilian is less likely to be like intimate friendship
and more likely to be oppositional and transactional. Putting a camera on an
officer means she is less likely to cut you some slack, less likely to not
write that ticket, or to bend the regulations a little as a sign of mutual
care.

Of course, it’s not like people trust the cops as it
is. Trust has to be continually earned
through consistent good behavior, and cops just haven’t been doing that for
some time, what with their increasing militarization, no-knock raids, and
accidental shootings. In short, cops act
like small-dick cowards with military complexes who think their badges make
them badass alpha males that everyone must respect. Consequently people can’t stand being around
them because they tend to abuse their authority, which leads to distrust. The cop cams are merely a reflection of that
which has already occurred. More to the
point, cop cams will help to rebuild trust because they will incentivize cops
to be on their best behavior, which would be a marked change from the status
quo.

Putting a camera on the police officer means that authority
resides less in the wisdom and integrity of the officer and more in the
videotape. During a trial, if a crime isn’t captured on the tape, it will be
presumed to never have happened.

Of course, it would help if cops had wisdom and integrity in
the first place. That a mechanical
recording device with a host of potential for mechanical failure is considered
more reliable than the average cop should indicate just how far the police have
fallen in prestige and trustworthiness.

Cop-cams will insult families. It’s worth pointing out that
less than 20 percent of police calls involve felonies, and less than 1 percent
of police-citizen contacts involve police use of force. Most of the time cops
are mediating disputes, helping those in distress, dealing with the mentally
ill or going into some home where someone is having a meltdown. When a police
officer comes into your home wearing a camera, he’s trampling on the privacy
that makes a home a home. He’s recording people on what could be the worst day
of their lives, and inhibiting their ability to lean on the officer for care
and support.

This is actually a pretty fair point. However, there is little reason to believe
that cops are the only people who mediate a conflict.

Cop-cams insult individual dignity because the embarrassing
things recorded by them will inevitably get swapped around. The videos of the
naked crime victim, the berserk drunk, the screaming maniac will inevitably get
posted online — as they are already. With each leak, culture gets a little
coarser. The rules designed to keep the videos out of public view will
inevitably be eroded and bent.

This is kind of an interesting point, because Brooks spends
his whole time arguing that cops are mostly trustworthy and cams will undermine
the trust between cops and civilians. Now
he argues that cops shouldn’t wear cams because they can’t be trusted to handle
the video with propriety.

In spite of that, I can’t really say that concerns over
individual dignity are that big a deal for a couple of reasons. First, if all “colorful” incidents recorded
by cop cams make it to YouTube, it’s unlikely that there will be as big effect
as Brooks assumes. Time, like all
resources, is finite and so it is unlikely that any given video of perps
behaving badly will get a lot of views because few people will find it worth
the time.

However, these sorts of videos will be locally popular among
the perps’ social circle, which should lead to greater mockery and shaming of the
perps. Like sitting in stocks, this
consequence will help to marginally reduce crime by encouraging shamable
assholes to put a little more thought into their actions prior to doing
something.

Moreover, unless the perp is a criminal, it is unlikely that
his instant celeb that comes from being posted online from a cop cam will
result in any major long-term negative feedbacks. Humans have short memories, so unless someone
tries to make a perp’s post-incident life a living hell, the controversy should
blow over quickly, relatively speaking.

In sum, there really is not much of a reason to oppose cop
cams, at least for the time being. Once
the cops have earned back the trust of the people, then we can reconsider the
costs and benefits of demonstrating trust.

22 April 2015

Politics follows culture. And the cultural revolution of the
'60s is triumphant. Traditional Christianity, driven out of schools and the
public square, is being whipped back into the churches and told to stay there.

America has gone over to the revolution.

Looking back, the sweep of the capitulation becomes stark.

First came the plea of atheists not to have their children
forced to participate in prayers at school. Fair enough. Americans do not
believe in compelling people to do as they disbelieve.

Then followed the demand that no child be exposed to prayers
or religious books, including the Bible, nor have any day or week set aside as
a holiday if connected to Christianity.

Out went Christmas and Easter. In came winter break and
spring break. Coaches of high school teams were ordered to dispense with prayers
before games. The coaches complied.

No matter what the majority wanted, the minority prevailed,
thanks to a Supreme Court whose dictates were never challenged by
democratically elected presidents or Congresses, nor ever defied by a Christian
majority.

In the sexual revolution there came first the plea that
abortion in extreme cases be decriminalized, then legalized, then subsidized,
then declared a right. From crime to constitutional right in two decades!

Unfortunately, this outcome has been pretty much inevitable
since the north won the civil war. Here’s why:
while the first amendment of the constitution prohibited congress from
regulating religion, the individual state governments were free to do so, and
could impose a state religion if they so desired (in fact, quite a few states
were founded for the purpose of having a state religion, e.g. Rhode
Island). The federal government was
intended to form an economic and political union among the states, and was thus
entirely secular/political in nature and operation precisely because its main
function was consolidate selected areas of political power to ensure that the
various American states could have more sway in the global realm and thus be
less subject to the overreach of European powers.

As long as the federal government amicably resolved disputes
among the states, the union would be preserved, and the federal government
would be relevant and have some degree of strength. To keep the government in check the ability for
states to secede from the union was implicitly understood, for if the states
could not secede, than what would prohibit the federal from simply dictating to
the states? Thus, the importance of the
civil war becomes obvious, for if states cannot secede, then the federal
government must necessarily trump over them, and ultimately all states must
adhere to the federal constitution.

Thus, when the north won the civil war, it was all but inevitable
that the federal government would overpower the states and, more to the point,
that secularism would triumph over religion because the federal government is
secular, not religious. While the
various states still had the option to leave the union, they also had the power
to establish their own religions. Once
leaving was no longer optional it of necessity became the case that religious
pluralism would take hold, only to be overcome by secularism. Funnily enough, religious pluralism is
exactly what enabled the triumph of secularism because, for as an astute internet commenter has noted in the process his recent Rabid Puppies campaign, a house
divided against itself cannot stand. In
order to preserve religious pluralism, it is necessary to have an irreligious moderator keep the various
divisions from overpowering each other (a religious moderator could not be
trusted, as it would be widely assumed to have a vested interest in something).

As pluralism increases (i.e. as more denominations pop into
existence), the secular power that keeps them in line must necessarily become
stronger to prevent the system from breaking down. Thus, the great irony takes shape: freedom of religion is death to Christianity.
Only a secular state that is given authority over religion can preserve
pluralism.* And what the state giveth,
it can take away.

The silver lining in all this is that the inevitable
persecution will cleanse the church of its evildoers and lukewarm members. There are two things holding the church back
in America: heterodoxy and patriotism.

Heterodoxy holds America back because it absolutely demands
the need for a secular government. As
long as American Christians demands the “right” to each determine their own
hermeneutic and consequently draw their own lines of fellowship and
recognition, they will inevitably be doomed to being regulated from above by a
secular government. (Also, given that
the government is essentially playing the role of baby-sitter, it should be
obvious why religion is more or less mocked in America and looked upon as
inferior to secularism.) There is a
reason why Saint Paul condemned the divisions that cropped up in the CorinthianChurch: Internecine squabbling weakens
the church and subjects it to harm from without.

As a side note, this is precisely what happened during the
crusades. Whenever the Christians won,
they eventually wound up bickering with each other over petty questions of
power and rule. While they bickered, the
Muslim forces would recover and regroup, then attack the Christians, often
successfully. Internal division makes
the church highly susceptible to outside attacks.

As bad as heterodoxy is, the American combination of
religion and patriotism is even worse.
Many Christians in America seem to take pride in having religious
freedom, or at least some form thereof, and therefore feel that America is a
country blessed directly by the Father himself because America enshrines
religious liberty as a right. There is
much to say about how the entire notion of “rights” is bullshit, to say nothing
of the stupidity of manifest destiny, but those will be posts for another
time. For now, suffice it say that as
long as American Christians are proud of their nation’s enshrinement of
religious tolerance, they will always be valuing secularism over Christianity,
whether they realize it or not.

Thus, the RFRA hullabaloo can be seen as a sign of the times,
as a warning of things to come. Given
that religion conservatives are mostly modernists through and through, and continue
to cling to the notion of somehow restoring America to its glory days of
religious freedom, it is inevitable that widespread persecution will occur. As long as division—seeds of dissension sown
by Satan—is lauded as beautiful and desirable, the church will be persecuted
until the wheat is separated from the chaff. Though this will be painful, it is a necessary
and good thing.

Fortunately, persecution is essentially a form of hormetic stress: what doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger. My belief is that the
persecution of the church in America will ultimately turn the heterodoxy into
orthodoxy. Weaker and more delusional
sects will disappear (think Mormons, JW’s and the Pentecostals), while larger
and more orthodox sects will combine and become more rigid, and thus more
resistant. My guess is that Calvinism
will finally get stamped out.

From this, I think one of two scenarios is quite possible. I think there is a decent chance that the
pluralist denominations get subsumed into the Catholic church (either Roman or
Greek, the former being more likely).
Alternatively, I think that fundamentalist sects merge into an orthodox
group that practically turns in to the Greek Catholic church after a very long
time.

Now, while widespread persecution is likely inevitable, it
doesn’t have to be this way. There is no
reason why American denominations cannot stop their bickering, join together
and have a uniting faith and doctrine.
Aside from pride, that is. There
are a large number of nominal Christians in this country. As long as they are willing to work together
while still in large numbers, there is no reason to think that the tide cannot
be stemmed. However, this seems to be an
unlikely development as long as Christians continue to splinter off from each
other and celebrate their inferiority to secularism.

* Pay close attention to this quote too: “Last week, the Republican-dominated state
legislature passed a vaguely worded statute called the Religious Freedom Restoration
Act. It was promptly signed by Gov. Mike Pence, a Republican often touted in
conservative circles as a potential presidential candidate. Ostensibly, the law
simply states that the state courts in Indiana cannot intrude on an
individual’s religious liberty unless it can provide a “compelling” state
interest to do so.” Even the RFRA bill
assumed the state’s authority over religion!
If that’s what so-called religious conservatives are defending, no
wonder they’re losing!

21 April 2015

With rising income inequality in the United States, you
might expect more and more people to conclude that it’s time to soak the rich.
Here’s a puzzle, though: Over the last several decades, close to the opposite
has happened.

Since the 1970s, middle-class incomes have been stagnant in
inflation-adjusted terms, while the wealthy have done very well; inequality of
wealth and income has risen.

Over that same period, though, Americans’ views on whether
the government should work to redistribute income — to tax the rich, for
example, and funnel the proceeds to the poor and working class — have,
depending on which survey answers you look at, either been little changed, or
shifted toward greater skepticism about redistribution.

In other words, Americans’ desire to soak the rich has
diminished even as the rich have more wealth available that could,
theoretically, be soaked.

I suspect that the decreased desire of average Americans to
soak the rich among can be traced to at least two issues. First, most people have an intuitive
understanding that there are limits to how much the rich can be soaked before
they just up and leave. Second, promises
of soaking the rich, particularly in the name of reducing inequality often has
the strange effect of soaking the middle class.

Regarding the former, most people who know or work with or
for rich people (e.g. accountants) know that the rich can afford to manipulate a
system to their advantage, whether by lobbying/bribery or more commonly by
hiring people to manipulate the system for them, which is why tax lawyers make
pretty good money. More to the point,
tax exile has been used by plenty of people who could not or did not structure
their income so as to avoid paying income taxes. Thus, it’s pretty clear that vilifying the
rich, though an enjoyable pastime, doesn’t really accomplish much, save for
occasionally getting rich people to make their money in country where it isn’t
taxed as much, making everyone else more equal while having reduced access to
ta funds.

Regarding the latter, vilifying the rich in order to push
for greater fairness and equality has more or less led to the modern IRS tax
code, among a host of other things. The
complexity of the tax code makes it patently unfair and necessarily increases
inequality because it requires the need for specialists to help the ignorant
and less-intelligent navigate and manipulate the system. This isn’t as big a deal when for rich people
(the relative costs are low and the upside is high), but it is a big deal for
those who are not rich because not all can afford to hire an expert and may
lack the intelligence or know-how to navigate the system to their benefit. Since vilifying the rich to justify greater equality
tends to be a smokescreen for increased systemic complexity, most people are
wise to be distrustful of talk of “soaking the rich” since often turns out to
be the rich soaking the peons.

There are, of course, other reasons why people aren’t as
inclined to soak the rich. Aspirational
affiliation is likely among them. Also,
humans have a tendency to feel sympathetic towards the rich, partly out of the
human tendency to revere high-status individuals. Nonetheless, there is good reason to distrust
talk of redistribution. That reason is
deceit.

14 April 2015

But when Christian missionaries tried to appeal to the
Germanic invaders by invoking the universalism, pacifism, and egalitarianism
that had attracted the alienated inhabitants of the empire, they failed. That
was because the Germans practiced a folk religion that reflected ethnic
homogeneity, social hierarchy, military glory and heroism, and “standards of
ethical conduct ... derived from a sociobiological drive for group survival
through ingroup altruism.” Germanic religion and society were
“world-accepting,” while Hellenic Christianity was “world-rejecting,”
reflecting the influence of Oriental religions and ethics. By “Germans,” it
should be noted, Mr. Russell does not mean modern residents of Germany but
rather “the Gothic, Frankish, Saxon, Burgundian, Alamannic, Suevic, and Vandal
peoples, but also... the Viking peoples of Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon
peoples of Britain.” With the exception of the Celts and the Slavs, “Germans”
thus means almost the same thing as “European” itself.

Given the contradictions between the Christian ethics and
world-view and those of the Indo-European culture of the Germanic peoples, the
only tactic Christians could use was one of appearing to adopt Germanic values
and claiming that Christian values were really compatible with them. The bulk
of Mr. Russell’s scholarship shows how this process of accommodation took place
in the course of about four centuries. The saints and Christ Himself were
depicted as Germanic warrior heroes; both festivals and locations sacred in
ancient Germanic cults were quietly taken over by the Christians as their own;
and words and concepts with religious meanings and connotations were subtly
redefined in terms of the new religion. Yet the final result was not that the
Germans were converted to the Christianity they had originally encountered, but
rather that that form of Christianity was “Germanized,” coming to adopt many of
the same Indo-European folk values that the old pagan religion had celebrated.

I’m fairly ignorant on the history of Germanic peoples and
how their culture has descended through time.
Nonetheless, I think it would be quite interesting to see just how much influence
those of Germanic descent have on this modern world.

I say this because I’ve been repeatedly struck by how
martial those of Germanic descent have tended to be in the last, say one thousand
years. For example, I found it
interesting when reading a fairly comprehensive history of the crusades how
Just War theology began to become popularized in the Roman Catholic Church soon
after the Church began to bring Germanic tribes under its authority. Moreover, as I’ve been reading van Creveld’s
history of military theory, it’s also striking how large a number of military
theorists in the last couple hundred years have likewise been of Germanic
descent.

Perhaps there is something to the notion that our genes play
a non-negligible role in making us who we are.
Perhaps there is eve something to be said for racial and ethnic
stereotypes too. Perhaps I’m just
completely ignorant, and there is absolutely nothing to the notion that those
of Germanic descent might be a wee bit martial and bloodthirsty.

An eyewitness whose cellphone video put a South Carolina
police officer in jail on a murder charge said Wednesday that he did not hear
the white officer give any warning before he fired eight times at the back of a
black man who can be seen in the footage running away before he falls to the
ground.

Feidin Santana told NBC News that while walking to work
Saturday morning, he saw Officer Michael Thomas Slager controlling Walter Lamer
Scott on the ground, and began recording when he heard the sound of a Taser.
"Mr. Scott was trying just to get away from the Taser," said Santana,
a barber originally from the Dominican Republic. "He was just looking for
a way to get away from the police."

Slager initially claimed he fired in self-defense after the
suspect he had pulled over for a broken brake light grabbed his Taser.

Santana's recording documented a different scenario. It
begins at a moment when both men are standing, as Scott pulls away from the
officer and an object appearing to be a stun gun falls to the ground, trailing
wires. As the unarmed man runs away, Slager then pulls out his Glock pistol and
fires eight times at the back of the 50-year-old man, until he crumples to the
ground about 30 feet away.

Santana also said he didn't see the officer render any first
aid to Scott after he was on the ground.

A couple of thoughts come to mind.

First, a single data point is not a trend. This appears to be the first recorded
instance of unprovoked white cop shooting a defenseless black man. This should not, as yet, be extrapolated into
proof of America’s overwhelming anti-black racism. Obama’s serving a second term as president
and hasn’t been impeached in spite of his overwhelming incompetence. While the nation may not have reached an
egalitarian ideal (and whether it should even attempt to is an entirely different
question), it’s not exactly apartheid over here, and blacks seem generally
content to live as “second-rate” citizens instead of, say, migrating back to
their home continent of Africa. So while
life in America isn’t perfect for blacks, it’s still fairly good.

Second, it should be fairly obvious that some cops are but
pussies with guns. The most obvious sign
that the cop in question was a coward is seen in his attempt to place the taser
next to his victim. This was obviously a
split-second decision to attempt to improve his standing for a post-incident
review, since belligerent black guys who try to attack cops (e.g. Mike Brown)
are not looked upon with too much favor.
Thus, if the cop could argue that he was attacked his behavior would
seem more defensible. Consequently, it
seems like it would be a very good idea to have cops where body cameras
non-stop while on duty. They should
still be allowed to carry guns, since they are quite obvious and natural
targets, and should have the human right of self-defense. Nonetheless, they should be held to a much
higher standard of conduct than civilians, and their on-duty behavior should be
monitored at all times to keep them honest.
If they engage in shootings less frequently and have to do more legwork
and honest-to-goodness investigations, I’m fine with that.

Third, the victim is likewise a coward, and also a criminal,
and not someone worthy of a social cause or defense. “The wicked flee when no one pursues.” The victim clearly had a guilty
conscience. Whether this was because of
lapsed child support, for which a warrant had been issued for his arrest, or
whether it was for some other crime is hard to say. What’s clear, though, is that the victim did
not behave like an innocent man. Traffic
stops are a part of life for pretty much everyone (for what it’s worth I’ve
been pulled over five or six times), and remarkably few people see that as a
cause to run away from the cop. While
being pulled over is never pleasant, it’s also not a cause for panicked escape.

Furthermore, while I can’t say I’m fond of the divorce and
alimony laws that make it easy for men to be utterly wiped out by vindictive
ex-wives and jilted baby mommas, I still find it impossible to defend a man who
will not support his children. Perhaps the
terms of support were especially onerous to the victim. Perhaps not.
Either way, I cannot defend someone who will not make the maximum effort
to provide for his children. While I do
not celebrate Walter Scott’s death, by the same token I do not mourn it.

In the final analysis, there is little to like about this
mess. Honestly, it appears that Slager
was simply a cop who panicked when a routine traffic stop didn’t go as
planned. Given that the last highly
publicized cop shooting involved a belligerent black male who tried to attack a
cop during a routine stop, it’s hard to blame the cop for being a little twitchy
and overreacting to the sudden getaway attempt.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to blame the victim for being twitchy given
that he had a warrant out for his arrest. That said, it was colossally stupid
for Scott to have thought that trying to run away was going to improve his
legal standing in any way. Not only
that, the media surely deserves blame for needlessly stirring up racial divide
and hatred, which undoubtedly reduced the admittedly miniscule amount of trust
between cops and black men. Perhaps this
could have gone differently if cops were more accountable, black males didn’t
commit such a disproportionately large number of crimes, and the media didn’t
spend so much time and energy stirring up strife.

24 March 2015

There are many across the political spectrum that will claim Barack Obama has let them down at some point over the last six and a half years. The reasons for their disappointment with the Obama presidency vary. Regardless of political persuasion, everyone should agree that among the greatest disappointments of this administration is its failure to secure the release of Saeed Abedini. This American citizen has been imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and denied medical treatment in an Iranian prison for the “crime” of sharing his religious faith. Any other administration in American history would have already secured his release. That is, any other administration but this one.

Actually, I don't agree that this is a failure at all. If Mr. Abedini wishes to preach Christ to muslims in a country where such preaching is banned, than it is his duty to shoulder the God-given consequences of his decision. Morever, he should strongly consider the example of his forebear, St. Paul, who, after recounting his suffering for Christ, said, "That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." Note that he didn't ask for the imperial government to deliver him from persecution.

Christ made it very clear that those who wish to be his disciple need to count the cost of doing so. Those disciples who are called to spread the word will pay a high price indeed, and must be willing to pay it without complaint. While it is certainly disheartening to see a brother in Christ tortured for his faith, it should not be surprising, for the world hated Christ, and will most certainly hate those who aspire to follow after him.

More to the point, though, petitioning for the release of a persecuted Christian is a tactically foolish decision. Martyrdom, though discouraging, often has the effect of inspiring followers, for it necessarily begs the question of what is so valuable that someone found to be worth dying for? This is warfare on the moral level, and Muslims have been winning this ground for decades with their willingness to die for their cause. Christians will not begin to win until, paradoxically, they are willing to die. If a Christian is not willing to suffer or die for his beliefs, just how valuable are his beliefs?

Well, the debate over whether one of our era’s most renowned pop stars identifies as a feminist appears to have finally been put to rest.

“As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities,” Swift said in an interview with the Guardian. “What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men. And now, I think a lot of girls have had a feminist awakening because they understand what the word means. For so long it’s been made to seem like something where you’d picket against the opposite sex, whereas it’s not about that at all.”

I suspect the main reason why feminism has become a bit of a punchline of late is precisely because it is a sort of Rorschach test. It means whatever one wants it mean. So, for some, feminism means supporting basic political equality while for some it means stacking the legal and political system against men. More to the point, the mere fact that feminism is used to both condemn and defend female stars* should indicate just how useless of an ethic it really is. Fittingly, deciding whether something or someone is feminist is merely a matter of picking a plausible rationalization for one's position. (Consequently, every assertion is subject to endless debate because every position conceivable can be rationalized in a plethora of ways.)

In fact, it’s Swift’s friendship with the indefatigable Lena Dunham that appears to have swayed her view. According to the Guardian, Dunham and Swift became friends when the creator of Girls sent the pop singer a direct message over Twitter that said “Can we be friends please?” Things pretty much went naturally from then on.

“Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so,” Swift said.

More likely, Lena Dunham is a dishonest self-admitted pedophile who is used to manipulating more naive females in to giving her what she wants, and probably said whatever it took to get Taylor Swift to feel comfortable admitting she was a feminist. Or maybe Ms. Swift was all along. Still, it feels like more than a coincidence that Taylor Swift didn't come out, so to speak, until after the Human Toad hung out with her.

* On one hand, some feminists view porn as demeaning to women. On the other, some view it as empowering. That both views are plausible indicates how little moral fiber feminism, as a philosophy has. Perhaps that's why its best to not let women be moral leaders.

23 March 2015

Americans who have criminal histories are often stymied when they encounter college entry applications that ask if they have ever been convicted of crimes. The process, which often brings greater scrutiny to people who answer “yes,” is driving away large numbers of people who present no danger to campus safety and are capable of succeeding academically.

Similar problems have faced people with records when they look for jobs, but progress on that front could be a model for reforming college admissions. Fourteen states and about 100 local governments have worked to minimize job discrimination by barring public — and, in many cases, private — employers from asking about criminal convictions until later in the application process, when the person has had a chance to prove his or her worthiness for the job.

Given the current rape crisis on college campuses across the nation, it's hard to see how allowing criminals on campus is going to make the problem go away, or even improve. It's almost as if the idiots/leftists calling for this reform want more rape on campus...

More to the point, it is starting to seem obvious that women are, as the phrase goes, protesting too much. Maybe women just want to be thrown around and sexually ravished by strong, dominant men. Maybe this is especially true of young women in their prime (i.e. coeds), so perhaps the rape crisis is a figment of young women's imaginations in the sense that it's a fantasy they are hoping will come true.

Of course, given that colleges are majority female, and given that a lot of male college students tend to be nerdy and socially awkward (think engineers or other spergy types), it really shouldn't be all that surprising that young women feel sexually frustrated, especially since the feministic professorial cabals that comprise campus faculty are doing their damnedest to neuter young men. Frankly, it's astonishing that any sort of healthy intersexual relations can take place at all on colleges, given that the choice facing young women is between either getting used and abused by near-criminal stud athletes or "dating" effiminate manlets who are possibly eunuchs that lack even the strength to throw a woman around, to say nothing of ravishing her.

Given the increasing prevelance of these male lesbians, is it any wonder that women can't stop fantasizing about self-made, dominant men?

22 March 2015

Is Hillary Rodham Clinton a McDonald’s Big Mac or a Chipotle burrito bowl? A can of Bud or a bottle of Blue Moon? JCPenney or J. Crew?

As she readies her second presidential campaign, Clinton has recruited consumer marketing specialists onto her team of trusted political advisers. Their job is to help imagine Hillary 5.0 — the rebranding of a first lady turned senator turned failed presidential candidate turned secretary of state turned likely 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.

Clinton and her image-makers are sketching ways to refresh the well-established brand for tomorrow’s marketplace. In their mission to present voters with a winning picture of the likely candidate, no detail is too big or too small — from her economic opportunity agenda to the design of the “H” in her future campaign logo.

“It’s exactly the same as selling an iPhone or a soft drink or a cereal,” said Peter Sealey, a longtime corporate marketing strategist. “She needs to use everything a brand has: a dominant color, a logo, a symbol. . . . The symbol of a Mercedes is a three-pointed star. The symbol of Coca-Cola is the contour bottle. The symbol of McDonald’s is the golden arches. What is Clinton’s symbol?”

Ultimately, the essence of modern American universal democracy is that it is nothing more than a marketing campaign. Complaining that presidential debates don't offer much in the way of in-depth of foreign policy discussion is about as ludicrous as saying that Microsoft press conferences don't offer much in the way of in-depth foreign policy discussions. There is no seriousness in politics because consumers want flash, not depth. Politics is merely shopping for a symbol; the currency is votes.

Thus, it should not be surprising that politicians talk about branding and marketing themselves to voters. Voters are merely consumers, unconcerned with the ramifications of their decisions. Politics is a game to be played; it's a way for voters to feel self-important and connected to the world at large. If American governance seems insane, it's only because the citizens are crazy. The inmates vote on how to run the asylum.

Thus, the often suicidal policies enacted by politicians come about not because politicians are completely unaware of the consequences but rather because the voters are. When even a healthy chunk of Tea Partiers want to keep one of the largest (and unconstitutional) chunks of government spending, you can tell that there is no fundamental opposition to big government or excessive spending.

Consequently, the reason why there is hardly any practical difference between Democrat and Republican politicians is simply because neither party's supporters wants to alter the status quo all that much. Rather, what people want are figureheads who "speak for them." No wonder politicians are so full of hot air.

If you were watching the news last year, it was hard to escape the impression the world was falling apart. Now the data is in. And yes, it turns out the world’s most violent conflicts got a lot bloodier in 2014 — almost 30 percent bloodier, in fact.

According to an analysis of data from the world’s 20 most lethal wars last year, at least 163,000 people died in conflict. That compares to just under 127,000 in the 20 worst wars the previous year, a rise of 28.7 percent.

That’s a pretty disturbing spike by anyone’s terms. And if you look at the first few months of 2015, the violence doesn’t seem to be waning.

What’s even more worrying is that this seems to be part of an ongoing trend that now goes back eight years. According to the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), global violence — as defined by a range of measures from conflict deaths, to displaced persons, to homicide rates — has been rising since 2007.

This news is in many ways surprising because up to 2007, the data suggested the world was becoming a much safer place.

According to the IEP, global violence had been broadly subsiding since the end of World War Two. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker traces it back even further. Since the dawn of prehistory, Pinker’s research suggests, mankind has been becoming less violent.

I believe what we are witnessing is post-peak diversity. Since it is axiomatic that people like being around people who are similar, it should come as no surprise that diversity has its limits. To put it simply, there is a limit to how much differentness people are willing to tolerate. We've gone past the limit.

The solution to this problem is segregation mediated by trade. Let each culture/ethnicity have its own place and its own order, and let various ethnicities/cultures engage in trade with one another. Segregation will help to avoid the conflicts arising from the friction of daily interaction with "the others," and trade relations help to ameliorate the desire for "the others" abroad, as doing so will lead to some degree of impoverishment.

Trying to encourage or force a coalition of different ethnic groups to live in close proximity to each other is recipe for violence. Trying to use force in lieu of trade is also a great way to build distrust and breed violence. Given the US foreign and domestic policy is, to use Steve Sailer's phrase, "invade the world, invite the world," it should not be at all surprising that the world is becoming more violent. And it shouldn't be surprising if this trend continues for quite some time.

05 March 2015

Last month, a study documented the extent to which students use different sets of words (many of them with gender implications) to discuss their male and female professors. Now a new study looks at how students on Rate My Professors rate instructors who have Asian-sounding last names, and the results suggest that these instructors are getting significantly lower scores than those with other last names in Rate My Professors' categories of clarity and helpfulness.

The author of the study, who also examined comments students make about the instructors, said that his findings raise questions about whether American colleges and universities are as international in outlook at they boast of being -- and whether Asian instructors are being reviewed fairly. The study -- "She Does Have an Accent But" -- has just been published in the journal Language in Society (abstract available here).

...

Over all, he found that instructors with "American" last names received clarity scores that were 0.60 to 0.80 points higher than did those with Asian names (on a five-point scale), and that they received scores 0.16 to 0.40 points higher on the helpfulness scale.

Of course, the only explanation for why American students would possibly rate Asian professors as less clear and helpful than their American counterparts is the well-known intrinisc racism of Americans (especially the white devils). It is simply inconceivable that the stereotype of Asians being less than perfectly fluent in English have any sort of a sliver of a kernel of truth to it. Yes sir, Science has once again proved that Americans are Racist (TM).

18 February 2015

Therefore, we demand enactment of the following Amendment
to the Constitution:Section A:

Notwithstanding the provisions of the Constitution or
Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, no entity, organ, authority or sub-unit of
government in the United States or its possessions may issue or maintain debt
except;

1. In anticipation of tax revenue to be collected within a
12 month period via tax anticipation notes, with each such issue
binding the specific sequester of tax revenues so-anticipated;

2. During a time of declared war, the declaration of which
contains a specific statement declaring and defining an existential threat to
the continued existence of or liberty in the United States, and only to fund
the specific and identifiable costs of said conflict with a maturity of no more
than 10 (ten) years beyond the termination of hostilities;

So, per Denninger’s proposed amendment, the government would
be able to issue debt as long as there is a declaration of war and the bonds
mature within ten years of the termination of hostilities, provided the funds
were used to pay for the conflict. So,
it could hypothetically be the case the government could engage in an expensive
war that has no apparent end in sight, which it then funds with debt. Further, the government could perpetuate the
war by funneling arms to resistance groups which in turn rebel against the
government that gave them the weapons, and incite the public to fear by arguing
loudly for the need to stand up to, say, terrorists. Additionally, the government could a)
redefine budget items as pertaining to war and b) simply shuffle money from the
armed forces to other branches.
Honestly, it doesn’t look like Denninger’s proposed amendment would
really change that much given its loopholes.

The reason for this is pretty simple: good government is a function of good men,
not good laws. The only thing Denninger’s
amendment could do is change the government paperwork that makes its current
behavior kosher. The bigger issue is not
that the law isn’t sufficiently thorough, it’s that politicians and bureaucrats
are almost morally bankrupt and the average voter completely so. If the American people were sufficiently
outraged, no change in law would be necessary for the people would vote the
current bums out of office. That the
American people have yet to do so indicates that they are indeed
well-represented by their elected officials.

Sadly, Denninger is stuck on the modernist myth of America,
a nation of laws. Unfortunately, laws
without morality are merely hoops to jump through, and no number of codified
regulations can save a nation that is morally corrupt for, fundamentally, laws
must interpreted and enforced by men.
Thus, Denninger is clinging to the false god of rule of law. The truth is that we have always been ruled
by men all along. Now that men are thoroughly
corrupt, we see what a charade rule of law really is.

Speaking of end-of-life, assume doctor-assisted-suicide is
legal by the time this city is built. I plan to make sure that happens in
California on the next vote. Other states will follow. In this imagined future
you can remove much of the unnecessary costs of the cruel final days of life
that are the bulk of medical expenses.

The nominal defense of euthanasia is to reduce pain and
suffering as life draws to its close.
While this can be a somewhat noble motivation (after all, who really
wants to defend pain and suffering on their intrinsic merits?), it is a rather
shallow way of solving the problem of end-of-life pain and suffering.*

To wit, a large chunk of age-related pain is
self-inflicted. For example, beingoverweight is generally linked to a plethora of health risks which require panoply
of medication to “treat.” While it is
obviously better to not be overweight in the first place, many people choose instead
to be overweight and thus bring upon themselves a wide variety of health
complications that make their lives miserable, particularly as they get older.
This thus makes dying more painful than it needs to be because it first made
living more painful than it needs to be.

Furthermore, a lot of end-of-life suffering is brought on by
the attempt to extend life artificially instead of letting nature run its
course. Euthanizing someone on life
support, or extensive system support is that radical a solution, especially
since the alternative is not intervening in the first place. While letting nature take its course may be
painful, it is arguably less painful than trying to intervene with machines and
medicine.

Ultimately, the biggest issue with euthanasia is that its
proponents and probable practitioners don’t really value life properly while
alive. If they did, they would be more inclined
to take care of themselves while alive and not cling so tenaciously, yet futilely
to life support as the end nears. They
are a soft people who see pain as an indignity yet lack the spine to triumph
over indignity with stoicism.

Arguably, the ultimate failure of the euthanasia crowd is
moral: they are too weak-willed to take
care of their bodies properly and too cowardly to face the consequences of
their choices. They wish to abuse their
bodies and then escape the pain when it arrives. No wonder life is cheap to them; they are not
willing to make the sacrifices a good life—and death—require.